Second International Olympiad in Theoretical, Mathematical and Applied Linguistics for secondary school students

First Announcement

Dear colleagues,

We are happy to announce the Second International Olympiad in Theoretical, Mathematical and Applied Linguistics for secondary school students, which will take place from 31 July to 7 August 2004 in the scenic suburbs of Moscow.

The world’s First International Olympiad in Linguistics was successfully held in September 2003 in the mountain resort Borovetz, Bulgaria. (More information about this event can be found at the address http://www.philol.msu.ru/~otipl/new/main/mol/englex.php). The idea of holding an International Olympiad stems from the experience with the Olympiads in Linguistics and Mathematics in Moscow and St.

Petersburg. (A detailed account of the history of the Moscow Olympics and a selection of problems from past events (in Russian) is available at http://ling.narod.ru). Since 1984, linguistic contests have also been regularly held in Bulgaria. In recent years similar events have been organised in the United States and the Netherlands.

We invite the participation of teams of up to four contestants who must be students of a school for secondary education and younger than 19 years at the time of the Second International Olympiad. Teams may represent individual cities as well as countries (one team per city; the Organising Committee also reserves the right to place a limit on the number of teams from one country). Those requiring a visa to enter Russia will receive assistance with the formalities.

Competitors will need no special knowledge to solve the problems offered at the International Olympiad. Each linguistic problem is dedicated to some interesting phenomenon in one or several languages. There will be two contests: an individual and a team one.

For preliminary registration for participation in the International Olympiad, write to iad@math.bas.bg (Ivan Derzhanski) and ling@narod.ru (Boris Iomdin) no later than 15 March 2004. If possible, indicate the approximate age of the contestants and their experience, if any, with solving linguistic problems. Teams which fail to meet this deadline are not guaranteed the right of participation. The final application must be sent by the team leader by 31 May 2004; it must contain the list of team members together with the language in which each of them wishes to have the problems of the individual contest, as well as the language in which the team will receive the problems of the team contest.

The Organising Committee also invites cooperation towards obtaining financial and media coverage support of the International Olympiad from academic, educational and commercial institutions, as well as all those involved in linguistic research and development who are interested in attracting young talent from all over the world into this discipline.

Sincerely,

Professor Vladimir M. Alpatov (DSc),

Chair of the Organising Committee

The Organising Committee of the Second International Olympiad in Theoretical, Mathematical and Applied Linguistics for secondary school students: